


An Ending

by failed_space_opera



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: And like, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Not Beta Read, Sort Of, Stream of Consciousness, Very little dialogue, a depressingly large amount of run-on sentences, creative use of puncuation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:49:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failed_space_opera/pseuds/failed_space_opera
Summary: The final confrontation on the Hephaestus.





	An Ending

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in a while but I listened to the mini episode "No Complaints" and also had in mind an idea for an ending so I added it together. Not a happy ending. I'm really sorry.

Daniel tried not to think about the real tipping point that made him make the shot to get the jettisoned part of the Sol back to the Hephaestus. It hadn’t been Lovelace and her serious eyes and serious voice ordering him to bring Eiffel and Minkowski back. It hadn’t been to hopefully bring his...definitely not friends, but his less-evil enemies back with a cyborg hostage if they played their cards right which was a stretch of an idea in itself.

No, the real reason he shot the line into the shuttle was because of his goddamn superior officer. 

Kepler had betrayed him. Had known what the consequences of his actions might have been and lost Daniel his best friend anyway. And Daniel couldn’t forgive that, but can’t pull the trigger himself that first time, and couldn’t stop himself from pulling the trigger this time. 

And then the star burns red through the windows. Lovelace and Minkowski have Reimann on the ground, guns pointed at his head and heart. Eiffel and Hera are off somewhere, somehow successfully distracting and/or getting rid of Cutter which, good fucking luck with making that stick. 

And Daniel is on his knees, hands pressed against his head as it feels like it’s going to explode as the cyborg bitch holds down a button on a switch in her hand with a laugh and saying something about how useless they all are without being part of her system until—

a mass in front of him blocks out the sickly glow of Wolf 359 and Kepler is there, pointing a gun at Pryce and his usually infuriatingly smug voice is cracking just a bit as he orders her to stop what she’s doing

and Daniel rises but he doesn’t mean to and he walks forward but he doesn’t want to and then all three of them are at the doors of the air lock and he knows, just knows that Pryce is going to space them both, danger to the ship be damned. She’s probably calculated just how to do it and ensure she and Cutter or Carter or whoever the fuck they are make it out fine.

(and if he makes it out of this alive somehow he was going to fucking blow every single copy of the SI-5 and Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol Manuals to hell)

Kepler is clenching his new mechanical hand like he’s trying to fight it and Pryce just keeps fucking laughing and Daniel’s head feels like it’s on fire and he can’t think and it’s getting harder to stop himself from moving on her command and he’s not going to kill Kepler, not when he’s just saved his worthless ass again.

The fight has become more visceral now, Pryce ruthlessly using her enhancements to try and overcome the colonel. Kepler fakes her out and trips her up, and she loses balance just enough to give Kepler an opening. He pushes her down and slams his foot on her leg, breaking it with an echoing snap that Daniel shudders at. The switch that had been clamped in her hand skitters across the floor and Daniel can finally think again.

Kepler is breathing heavily, flexing his hands as he stares Pryce down, making sure she isn’t about to get off the ground. The best she can do is drag is herself against the air lock door, glaring with her computerized eyes as she assesses the situation. Satisfied that she won’t be trying anything within the next few seconds, Kepler helps Daniel up, holding him steady as he wobbles to his feet.

Daniel almost pushes him away, almost pulls him closer, almost forgives him for all the shit he’s pulled for the past few months, looks up into his eyes and almost—

Kepler jerks against him as a bullet rips into his side, lodging in a place Daniel knows is vital because he has aimed at a spot like that many times in the past when he'd been ordered to kill people even worse than him, and took satisfaction in the slow and inevitable death it would yield. Daniel looks over the colonel's shoulder, sees Pryce with another fucking smile accented with blood as she lowers the previously hidden hand gun back to her side.

His attention turns back to the colonel, to Kepler, to Warren as his grip tightens and he tries to fight down his despair. It’s too hard, why is it so hard? He’s been able to do it with his guilt at who he turned out to be, his euphoric high after explosions go off one after another in a destructive and killing wave, his feelings for—even now he can’t admit it, not even when Warren is—

—pulling him closer than Daniel has ever dared to hope he might, touch too rough and too demanding as he always is as he draws Daniel's face up to his and presses words against his mouth for the first and last time.

“I’m sorry”

and he pushes Daniel away, sealing the door in front of him as he moves as fast as his mortal wound allows to grabs onto Pryce, depressing the triggers to the air lock. 

Sirens wail as Daniel stares and Daniel screams and Daniel forgets about the betrayal, about being used in all the ways but the one he could have resigned himself to, been content with, as he forgets about their last fight and remembers fireworks after a prank on an anniversary and

the door opens into a red smeared void as he loses everything he has left.


End file.
